Theosophy: a Necessity in the present times

Theosophy: a Necessity in the present timesAspasia2018-12-08T13:48:27+00:00

Theosophy: a Necessity in the present times

Αspasia Papadomichelaki

The prevailing tendencies of each era depict its actual needs. One of the current needs is to sustain the order in nature and societies.

But for this to be achieved, man must realize the causes that have brought about chaos and disorder. Religion, ancient wisdom and reason tell us that the antidote to disorder is morality, the only prerequisite, indeed, for a balanced life in human beings and nature as well as for the accomplishment of spiritual evolution. Morality is, therefore, the particular knowledge of the conditions which, if applied, may allow for both individual and collective welfare.

Such knowledge has existed from time immemorial and has been called THEOSOPHY, Ancient Wisdom or Wisdom – Religion and is the root of spiritual knowledge and moral education of mankind. All Great Men have been feeding on it so they teach the eternal verities.

Theosophy – a term meaning the Wisdom of the Divine Beings – is the source of all religion and occult teaching while its regularly occurring expressions on earth show forth the important starting-points of religion, occult teaching and initiation which become, in turn, mythology and starting-points of civilization, sciences, arts and letters.

Theosophy has nothing to do with a specific place or time. It is the eternal spiritual flow manifesting as religion, initiation and esoteric teaching for millions of years now and co-exists with the presence of intelligent man who, according to occult tradition, has been living on earth for 18.500.000 years.

The Modern Theosophical Movement, founded in 1875 by H. P. Blavatsky, H. S. Olcott and W.Q. Judge, is the most recent expression of eternal Wisdom – Religion and the most recent revival and retransmission of Ancient Wisdom to the West. The Movement has become a turning-point for Western culture as it has unveiled inner realities, having made room for a renewed transcendent knowledge that has given men clues of the previous century to try and reach out beyond the limited boundaries of prejudiced societies and the overpowering of the church.

Theosophy is the sort of Knowledge that can liberate the individual from spiritual destitution. Today, 130 years after its latest presentation in the West, occult knowledge having permeated the societies of our planet and its basic deductions having impressed the ethics of solidarity and unselfish giving, modern Theosophy is being called by today’s scholars and philosophers “Moralized Universality”.

It is the spiritual science that brings us close to the Divine Plan as it pertains to the principle of life, the origin and existence of the soul, the forces that compose all nature- including the human one – the mystery of death and rebirth; it is the spiritual science that defines the law of justice, the laws that govern the formation and development of the planet and life species on it – visible or invisible alike – and reveals to us the occult history of our planet and mankind.

H. P. Blavatsky, the founder of the Modern Theosophical Movement, says that “Theosophy is synonymous to Eternal Truth”(1) and that, “Theosophy is Divine Knowledge or Science, ‘Divine Wisdom’”(2).

It is this spiritual science that she put down in writing in her books “Isis Unveiled”, “The Secret Doctrine”, “The Key to Theosophy”, “The Voice of the Silence” and the 14 volumes with her articles and comments, the “Collected Writings”.

The Theosophical teaching is not a sum of personal theories and opinions. It comprises the age-old occult tradition handed down to us, in due time, by the so commissioned Spiritual Masters (Mahatmas).

It is not a belief or a formulated dogma invented by man, but the knowledge of the laws governing the physical, psychic and mental elements of nature and man …. It comprises everything and there is no unsolved mystery for it.

At given times – at the so-called (turns?), set up by the law of periodicity, aspects of eternal Wisdom – Religion are shown forth to mankind aiming at renewing religion, faith, initiation, tradition and civilization. The scope for this is to enlarge human consciousness with means corresponding to the needs and circumstances of the particular era human beings live in.

At such moments, there shows up once again a transcendent teaching based on wisdom and morality that starts sketching humanity’s new culture. It frames society according to the fundamental precepts of the teaching and governed by the law of periodicity, its cycle reaches a zenith to then turn downward to a nadir.

When at nadir, one other aspect of Eternal Wisdom – Religion comes up to revive the former one, now obscured by personal intervention, opinion and authoritative abuse. Mystic tradition has it that a Zodiac cycle lasting for about 2.000 years is the span of time for one aspect of Ancient Wisdom to be outwardly expressed to our world, which gives us the opportunity for new experiences while also reminding us of the ethical order and the spiritual purpose of evolution.

In the Secret Doctrine, one of the most outstanding books of the modern Theosophical teaching, at the Proem, we read that “…. the outline of a few fundamental truths from the Secret Doctrine of the Archaic ages is now permitted to see the light, after long millenniums of the most profound silence and secrecy.”(3)

What is the content of the Theosophical teaching?

The purpose of modern Theosophy is:(4)

– To show that Nature is not a fortuitous concurrence of atoms

– To justify the purpose of life

– To save from degradation the Primordial truths that form the foundation of all religions

– To disclose, to a certain extend, the fundamental unity wherefrom they sprang. To show that science will discover metaphysical laws which will be accepted by it and will become the ground-work for the new science of physics or post-science.

It comprises a full range of information, summed up as follows:

– There is One Omnipresent and Eternal Principle and since everything in universe emanates from It, all belongs to one Unity which predetermines the affinity and brotherhood of all beings.

– The Law is the Divine Will and Thought.

– The Laws of Justice (Karma), of Periodicity and Motion are the pillars of the universe and its operation.

– According to the hierarchical order of Life, there exist the “Elder Brothers” who uphold the schooling of the younger souls and who are the MASTERS and SONS OF GOD.

– Spiritual Hierarchy in Life is the result of evaluating morality and wisdom to be achieved by each being through self-induced effort.

– Moral Law is the Natural Law. Ethics is the presence of the Law in man which is followed up and evaluated by action.

– Evolution aims at spiritual perfectness.

– Real Theosophy is whatever helps and upgrades humanity. Its main target is not to promote our individual inspirations but rather to help us serve our fellow human beings.

The Teaching

According to the Theosophical teaching, everything in the Universe originates from One Source. From the One Principle – Substance and Root Cause emanate all Universal Laws and Souls. Its Essence underlies every atom in the Universe and is Universe itself. Its homogeneity determines the unity of life, men’s brotherhood and respect for all life-species. Its impersonality is the fundamental idea of the Theosophical teaching.

The Universe is the periodic manifestation of this unknown Substance which is Spiritual, while the Universe is Maya or Chimera, because everything in it is changeable and ephemeral. Spirit is the immortal element, eternal, boundless and all-wise.

Everything in the Universe, emanating from the One Divine Essence, is conscious, i.e. endowed with a conscience of its own kind and on its own plane of perception. There is no dead matter.

Each Monad- Soul is an infinitesimal part of the Divine Essence. Therefore it is immortal even though it borrows numerous mortal bodies in order to be able to exist on the different planes of the World.

Life shifts from Spirit to Matter and vice versa, forming while expanding different fields, their difference lying in how much, how moderate or how little the participation of Spirit in their matter is. This differentiation frames the various levels of the World and the various kinds of Monads (gods, devas, men).

The Universe is One Uniform Being, all the Monads of which are but its portions and emanations, found in co-adunition but not in consubstantiality,in other words they do not all share the same frequency, consequently they do not express the same forces and qualities. In the Universal Body the less evolved lives are parts of the more evolved Life aggregates.

The most evolved species, to whom we humans belong, are the spiritually perfected Entities called Logoi, Gods, Archangels, Buddhas, Dhyanis.

The scale of life hierarchy is evaluated on the difference in divinity, wisdom and self-consciousness; the purpose being divine self-consciousness which is attained through reiterated cycles within universe in physical, mental and spiritual bodies.

The Beings of the spiritual hierarchy become the Instructors of the less evolved ones. There exist hierarchies of perfected Beings who supervise the application of the Laws and the evolution of Life, while other hierarchies help the mental and spiritual progress of the Monads with moral training.

The Instructors belong to the Hierarchy of Compassion– also called White Brotherhood – and as Spiritual Masters, Mahatmas, Buddhas and Sons of God they enlarge individual consciousness with religions, initiations and education so as to adjust it to the law and purpose of Evolution. They train humanity so that men can progressively attain higher stages of self-consciousness.

Everything in Nature always tends to a higher stage of life, knowledge and wisdom. This is accomplished through continuous peregrination of the individual soul on the different planes of the universe and through different bodies and life species. The purpose is for the individual soul to get to know itself after projecting itself on all the differentiated states of the Universe – spiritual, mental and physical one. This is called “The Cycle of Necessity”.

Man is a Monad developing and cultivating the principles of desire and intelligence and the planet hosting him is a school where he is trained to discern Good or Harmony from Evil or Disharmony, a distinction effected through the laws of Retributive Justice and Reincarnation and by the teaching of Elder Brothers.

The founder, H. P. Blavatsky reaffirmed that the Theosophical work is an expression coming from the nucleus of Ancient Wisdom. She professes no “authority”. She says she is “the messenger” of the Great Ancient Lodge of the Masters of Wisdom and offers the teachings of the Elder Brothers of humanity like “a nosegay of culled flowers” having “broughtnothing of her own but the string that ties them”.

The morale of the teaching is harmonious co-existence, altruism, giving and service to the Ideas aiming at the refinement and spiritual progress of humanity.

The Secret Doctrine, the monumental book of the genuine Theosophical teaching, is a synthesis of philosophy, religion and science. Given in writing, it is considered to be the most recent revival of the spiritual knowledge on our planet. Researchers in Metaphysics regard her writings of unique authenticity and importance as it is to those pages that turn all those who wish to verify the correctness of other evidences and to gather information on the transcendent nature of man, the planet and the universe.

Parts of the Cosmogony, so analytically presented in the Secret Doctrine, are being, nowadays, well-attested step by step by the modern science of Physics.

In the Secret Doctrine is mentioned:

In Century the Twentieth some disciple more informed, and far better fitted, may be sent by the Masters of Wisdom to give final and irrefutable proofs that there exists a Science called Gupta-Vidya… the source of all religions and philosophies now known to the world has been for many ages forgotten and lost to men, but is at last found.(5)

And that …. one by one facts and processes in Nature’s workshops are permitted to find their way into the exact Sciences, while mysterious help is given to rare individuals in unraveling its arcane. It is the close of great Cycles, in connection with racial development, that such events generally take place. We are at the very close of the cycle of 5.000 years of the present Aryan Kaliyuga; and between this time and 1897 there will be a large rent made in the Veil of Nature, and materialistic science will receive a death-blow.(6)

All this was written in 1886-7 in H. P. Blavatsky’s pen. Prophecies being verified? Most probably, since a prophecy is only what, once foretold, is ultimately verified.

Aspasia Papadomichelaki

(Excerpts from this article have been published in the magazine “New Earth”)